(cultural) differences
by WinglessCrows
Summary: The first time Yuuri and Viktor go grocery shopping together, they somehow end up arguing about flour and rice.


**This story is based on conversations I've had at some point in my life**

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It was weird how long it had taken Yuuri and Viktor go grocery shopping together. It felt like such a perfectly normal couple thing to do, yet here they were, in early March, almost a year after they had first started living together in Hasetsu, grocery shopping together for the first time. Yuuri obviously blamed it skating, and the fact that Yutopia got so many groceries delivered to their doorstep, that there simply had been no need for grocery shopping. And in Saint Petersburg, well, it seemed that with Viktor furiously choreographing, coaching, skating, and simply trying to breathe, he couldn't really find time for things such as grocery shopping with his fiancé. And Yuuri didn't mind. Viktor would usually buy whatever they needed on his way back from the rink, if Yuuri realized he had forgotten something, but it was mainly Yuuri who did the shopping.

But when March came around, Viktor was finally happy enough with his programs to take a short break, and had happily declared that he would be taking a rest day or two, and tonight he would serve Yuuri a full three course dinner. And to do that, he needed groceries.

And yet, for their first time grocery shopping together, Yuuri quickly found himself alone in what looked to be the baking aisle. Yuuri's Russian was still very much at a beginner's level, but from his two months of shopping alone in Saint Petersburg, he was starting to learn a couple of things, and he remembered that on their list of items to buy, there was flour. So Yuuri grabbed a bag of what was hopefully flour, before setting off to find his fiancé, who was last seen picking out some vegetables.

Of course, Yuuri did not find Viktor at the vegetable section, rather, Viktor ended up finding him, as Yuuri was scrolling through the pasta aisle.

"Is that flour?" Viktor asked, upon seeing what Yuuri was carrying in his arms.

"Yes, you were going to bake, right?" Yuuri said as he put the flour down in the cart, but Viktor looked at him disapprovingly.

"Yeah, but I need cake flour. It's not like I'm going to bake you toast for dessert."

"Cake flour?" Yuuri questioned, having literally never heard the term 'cake flour' before, "Isn't all flour you put in cake, cake flour? This is fine, isn't it?"

"This is just all purpose flour, my love."

"Well, all purpose flour is flour for all purposes right?"

"What? No," Viktor said, genuinely outraged, "That's like saying that the skates you can buy in your local sports shop are 'just fine', because they say 'standard skates'."

Yuuri squinted his eyes a little as his fiancé explained his logic.

"I hate that you are making sense right now," Yuuri said in strained defeat as he took the flour from the cart again. But then he noticed a couple of strange items chosen by Viktor.

"Are those six packs of rice?"

"Yeah?" Viktor said and looked at the rice as if he was counting them, "We need a lot, right?"

"Yes, but we can buy ten times as much for half of the price of this," Yuuri gestured vaguely to the abundance of rice in the cart, "If we just go to the Asian market a few blocks away. Didn't we already agree to go there afterwards?"

"Doesn't all rice cost the same?"

"It does not. It is much cheaper at the market."

"Then why is it so expensive here?" Viktor said and took a bag of rice in his hand to examine it, almost as if it had wronged him.

"Because white people are easy to trick into paying lots of money for rice?"

"Oi!"

"I'm just saying no Asian person would ever buy rice from a supermarket. Besides, we'd have to fill our carts with nothing but rice. It's much easier to just buy the twenty kilos in one bag."

"There is twenty kilos in a bag?" Viktor asked surprised, and Yuuri honestly didn't know how they had been together for this long without Viktor knowing how to buy rice efficiently.

"Yes, that's why I told you that we need a rice dispenser. It will make our lives much easier."

"Right… I'll just put these puppies back, and you can get that cake flour, right?"

"Please don't refer to something I like to eat as 'puppies'."

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 **As an Asian, it never really occurred to me that non-Asians generally aren't aware that you can buy a lot of rice for not so much money if you just know where to go. If you're a student or just someone who wants to save some money, I'd really suggest looking at Asian markets for things like rice and compare them to the prizes at your local supermarket.**

 **Also, I totally headcanon Viktor as someone who likes to go through Asian markets and try out recipes he's tasted when travelling, but for the sake of the story, he doesn't know :P**


End file.
